The Man Booker Bookie
by Graham Sharpe
www.willhill.com
Okay, so I have now accepted that I am unlikely ever to be invited to become a Man Booker Prize Judge - but that does not stop me having pretty firm ideas about what does and doesn't constitute a potential or worthy winner. And as the person who has probably read more of the shortlisted novels over the past twenty years than almost anyone else outside of the award's inner-circle I believe that my opinions are as good as the next man, woman or critic's.
I am frequently asked by the media whether I have read the books when I issue the odds for the latest prize. These days the invariable answer at that point is 'no'. Were I to read all the longlisted books before they are announced I would have to be on the judging panel - or have sacrificed a great deal of valuable free time.
Even once the longlist is divulged I will only endeavour to read a few of them before they are whittled down to the much more manageable size of the short list.
But the public and the media want instant odds so although I will not have read more than a couple of the books I am betting on I have to be able to issue an accurate list of prices which won't run the risk of bankrupting William Hill.
So, how can I put those odds together at that stage? Well, the people who create the odds for the Derby or Grand National will never have sat on the horses concerned, and you don't have to have played Premiership football to quantify the chances of a team winning the League title.
I will read them eventually but my actual opinion of the merits of each book/author is basically irrelevant because what I am trying to do is second guess the judging panel and the betting public and experience tells me that the readers prepared to bet on a book have probably just read that particular title and been impressed with it, but have no opinion as to how it stacks up against the other possible winners.
Alternatively they are betting because they have read somewhere that a certain book is a fancied contender for the prize - so, the opinions of influential critics and journalists or broadcasters can also have a great effect on the way I price the books in my opening list of odds.
Sometimes I will have very strong views myself on the worthiness of contenders - for example, if it had been up to me last year's winning book would not even have made the shortlist. I thought Peter Carey's subject matter was too factual to qualify as a novel and the vocabulary used by his supposedly almost illiterate and gramatically-bereft narrator was too sophisticated to ring true - but then what do I know?
I made the front page of a national newspaper once by confessing that although the content of a particularly contentious Salman Rushdie book did not offend me, what did was the fact that I found the book almost unreadable.
Few of the Man Booker shortlisted titles would accompany me to Jersey where I spend most of my summer holidays - instead I take back-copies of Fortean Times which I have not yet got round to catching up with. But I do appreciate good writing, although I defy anyone to come up with a universally accepted definition of just what that is.
I like the quirky nature of the prize and understand its massive influence on the buying habits of the great British public, even though I would imagine that a large proportion of Man Booker sales are to people buying the books as ultimately un-read Birthday or Christmas presents. But at least the authors are benefiting from the sales - and the increased bargaining power with their publisher - accorded by success in the Man Booker Prize. I respect the way in which it has set the standards to which other literary prizes aspire , but never quite manage to achieve, and I appreciate the notoriety by association which I have acquired by setting the Man Booker Prize odds for a longer period than most murderers spend behind bars.
As a journalist by trade I am often asked why I have never written a novel but my training means that I would have compressed the story to the essential who, what, where, how and why and finished it off within a chapter should any publisher ever offer me the opportunity to burst into the fiction market.
However, I suppose I could always have a stab at it and would probably be prepared to do so for a low six-figure, two book deal so, if you're a publisher looking for a bright new talent whose name might carry a little weight with the Man Booker Prize judging panel, just give me a shout....
Regards
Graham Sharpe
Press Office
William Hill Organisation
http://www.themanbookerprize.com/2005prize/bookie.php
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) but I have, to the best of my knowledge only converted 2 people to being people who would buy and read nearly every issue (one of them has a subscription).
